Wolfed: The Sociopolitical Implications of being Animalized in the Middle Ages

Abstract

In this dissertation, the primary point of interest is the wolf’s voice and its portrayal of agency in German medieval literature and reception thereof. For this reason, examples in which the wolf itself speaks, or acts to address its own sociopolitical status, and comments on issues of being an outsider, or having been made an outsider, are of particular interest.I analyze various medieval texts that portray realistic as well as allegorical wolves. These texts include receptive works by German Romanticists who engage with medieval material and culture specifically connected to the wolf motif. Within this analysis, I show the cultural value of the wolf motif in literature, and, due to the motif’s ambivalent and ambiguous implications in Western thought, I focus on the wolf’s sociopolitical status as an outsider and its liminal nature in relation to society and humanity. In analyzing the literary wolf in medieval German literature, I focus on the ambiguous implications of what it means for a character to be given wolfish characteristics, or to be made a wolf. This process of wolfing interplays with attitudes toward the animal and its cultural value. I claim that wolves have, on the one hand, been given a predominantly negative stigma. Like the real animal that was free to be hunted and killed in medieval times, allegorical wolves are individuals associated with the wolf motif as an intrinsically negative, and socio-politically hostile characteristic in literature. For individuals to have been wolfed means, concretely, that the animal and the human individual are in some form silenced, exiled, prosecuted, and similarly ostracized. The concept of being made a wolf is complex because, the wolf and wolfed individual hold, on the other hand, highly desirable qualities such as strength, bravery, and independence in their wolfed status. I argue that these wolfed individuals frequently use their abilities and skills to both survive and to stand up against the specific sociopolitical grievance that the repressive social structure used to make these individuals into wolves in the first place. Being wolfed, in other words, includes positive connotations like survival strategies in a hostile environment, such as a repressive society. Acknowledging both sides of the wolfish qualities underscores the relevance of wolfish voices and their role in formulating a more just sociopolitical constellation by calling out injustices in the first place. This study shows the importance of acknowledging the ambivalence of the wolf motif to create a more tolerant society. The function of the wolf motif in literature is a signal toward sociopolitical grievances, and how these grievances reflect prejudices and biases. Of course, the wolf is not only innocent and misunderstood, but also a dangerous predator. However, with regard to individual freedom to participate and formulate social structures and regulating its rules for a thriving environment, all voices need to be taken into account, and the wolf’s voice is significantly strong.